


ain't no mountain high enough

by philthestone



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, The Whole Gang's Here - Freeform, also the avengers are here sort of, alternatively known as 25 pages on nail polish and the power of friendship in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 07:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11202987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: Stark continues looking at Peter. Peter considers the fact that the world is probably going to end within the next few days, and they, collectively, are supposed to be stopping it.“Uh,” says Peter, waving his fingers a little bit. “It makes you feel really cool. You should try it.”“We’re not painting our nails to match,” deadpans Stark.“Well, sure,” says Peter. “But don’t come crawling back to me when you can’t defeat Thanos ‘cause you didn’t wanna harness the power of friendship.”





	ain't no mountain high enough

**Author's Note:**

> SO UH,,,, guardians vol.2 took over my whole life and this is what's left in the aftermath. thanks james gunn
> 
> the whole fic was inspired by this precious artwork: http://goosterbold.tumblr.com/post/161490670970/a-very-sacred-terran-ritual-also-if-somethings
> 
> and, also, that one post that's like: gamora: "You All Are Not"// peter: "Y'AIN'T"
> 
> yes, folks, i wrote 10k words of fic just to make peter quill say "y'ain't". what a time to be alive
> 
> title's from marvin gaye, OBVS
> 
> reviews are getting manicures if that's ur thing and also the power of friendship in space, which is a good and wholesome thing, and naturally there are more notes at the end!

There’s about three things Peter’s come to know about Tony Stark in the brief period they’ve been acquainted.

One: he appreciates some bangin’ tunes, which Peter has maintained since he was a skinny kid trying to make friends amongst human-eating space pirates is an immediate and automatic reason to respect a man;

Two: he’s kind of secretly scared shitless of Nebula. Peter understands this. _Everyone’s_ kind of secretly scared shitless of Neblua, except for maybe Gamora, of whom many people are also scared shitless ( _hell yeah_ , thinks Peter; his wife is _so_ much cooler than him);

Three: the guy’s an asshole, but that’s mostly just how he deals with stuff, which means that he’s an asshole-but-not-really-an-asshole, or at least, the sort of asshole who can be tolerated and even liked. Peter, personally, can relate to this more than most.

But, seriously? He’s hating on the team colours?

“Uh, _yeah_ ,” says Peter. “You guys don’t have that?”

So maybe they’ve only just met, and maybe these Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Types (that’s just _lame_ , thinks Peter, and Peter calls his piece-meal family of questionably sane dumbasses “the Guardians of the Galaxy” unironically) don’t actually fully trust them.

Sure, fine. Peter’s pretty sure the gang doesn’t fully trust _them_ , either. Two-way street, folks. And yeah, maybe they’re a little eccentric for Earth standards; Peter’s not been back to Terra for a very long time, very much on purpose thanks (because he deals with his issues like a super mature and emotionally healthy adult), but thinking back, most of the crazy shit that’s become daily life when your house is a cramped refurbished M-ship that floats around in the middle of actual space is like, definitely not “normal” by average Terran standards. Or even by not-so-average Terran standards.

Stark is still looking at him a little bit like he can’t actually believe this is his life right now (Peter hates how he can sort of relate).

“Your loss,” says Peter, putting on his smuggest possible face. It’s the one that would make Gamora roll her eyes _extra_ exaggeratedly. Truly his greatest work.

Behind him, Drax has taken out his longest knife and is polishing it with his typical manic smile adorning his round face; Groot keeps trying to offer Sam whatsisface – the bird dude – a flower crown (he’s getting around to him slowly); and Peter’s pretty sure Gamora’s eyeing Black Widow and going through her mental checklist precluding an “I want to go start a conversation with this person to maybe be their friend but because of a frankly terrible childhood I’m not sure where to start in a non-weird fashion” line of thought, which could end amazingly or in lots of people dying – Peter’s not sure.

On the other side of the door, voices sound, getting louder as they come up the ship’s main hallway.

“Listen – just for a second? I ain’t gonna do nothin’ weird with it, I just need it for personal purposes!”

“Steve! The talking raccoon is trying to take my arm!”

Stark continues looking at Peter. Peter considers the fact that the world is probably going to end within the next few days, and they, collectively, are supposed to be stopping it.

“Uh,” says Peter, waving his fingers a little bit. “It makes you feel really cool. You should try it.”

“We’re not painting our nails to match,” deadpans Stark.

“Well, sure,” says Peter. “But don’t come crawling back to me when you can’t defeat Thanos ‘cause you didn’t wanna harness the power of friendship.”

**

So, okay, maybe it all starts because Gamora is literally the most amazing, greatest, coolest, and awesomest girlfriend-slash-best-friend-slash-co-parent-of-a-spaceship-full-of-weirdos to ever exist, ever. This is an undisputed fact. This is something that even their collective emotionally constipated family-wide ass can freely admit to and exclaim over. Hell, even _Rocket_ says, after the fact,

“Jeez, Gamora. That was really nice of you.”

Peter still sometimes gets emotional when thinking about it, which is totally not lame at all, Rocket, _thank_ you.

Anyway. They’re in the cargo bay, which somehow also doubles as a weight room or something – there’s a low-hanging bar across one of the doorways that Peter’s always used to do pull-ups when he needs to let off steam, and there are, like … boxes. That weigh a lot. Which honestly, Drax just straight-up picks up and lifts over his head repeatedly, something that Peter isn’t sure constitutes a real work-out, but whatever, right? Who is he to judge – workout routines are probably different for every species, and anyway, he’s never actually had a legitimate workout routine himself. More like he runs away from people trying to kill him a lot and also pull-ups, and magically ends up in-shape.

“That’s gotta count for something, right?” he asks, clicking through the list of songs on his Zune as Gamora lets out a measured exhale underneath him and Peter feels himself slowly lowering again. Most days he’s still not over the fact that if he braces his back properly she can and will literally bench-press him, which is pretty much the greatest thing _ever_ , in the universe, to Peter’s understanding. Except maybe Marvin Gaye’s voice and also those neat orange-looking freeze-dried crisps that Rocket discovered on the last planet they had a job on, which literally taste like God, probably.

He sometimes makes badass sound effects every time she lifts him, just because it’s so cool. Except the sound effects make Gamora laugh, which means her arms shake, which means sometimes Peter is dropped unceremoniously flat on his face onto the cargo bay floor. So background music from the Zune is generally the safer choice.

“Your idea of a workout routine is me doing this,” says Gamora, in a clearly unimpressed voice, barely twitching as she lifts him back up again.

“You mean you benchpressing me is _not_ a workout routine?”

“A routine involves vigorous and structured training –”

“So like, the kinda stuff that makes you feel like your whole body is on fire in the morning, got it. Hey, song opinion time, Boogie Wonderland or I’m My Number One?”

“I enjoy the Madonnas,” says Gamora, after a short pause, wherein he hovers in the air a little bit.

Peter grins, because a) sometimes his heart still gets a little full that she so readily embraces and appreciates his enduring and probably sometimes annoying attachment to Terran music, and b) to the extent of his knowledge, Mylene Cruz and the Soul Madonnas is the only group for whom Gamora actually remembers and correctly pronounces their name. His thumb flicks over the play button and he hums along as the first chords come on, momentarily chilling out to the soothing up-and-down motion of being bench-pressed.

He’s just gotten to where the beat drops and is starting to really vibe, his fingers tapping erratically against the Zune’s already-battered casing, when the movement stops. Between his shoulderblades and against his crossed knees, Gamora’s hands suddenly feel weirdly stiff.

“Peter?”

“Yep,” says Peter, who is thinking maybe she wants to ask him to hold one of those boxes or something, so that this can be more of a legit workout and less of a chill bonding exercise that most normal couples partake in. Right? That’s a thing, he’s _sure_.

“Earlier today,” says Gamora, definitely not talking about boxes, her voice measured and careful. “When we were in the junk shop. You were reminded of something when you saw those coloured bottles.”

Peter’s fingers still in their tapping against the Zune, his breath catching in his chest. She says it like a statement, not a question, which he can’t help but think is maybe why he sometimes wonders where exactly he’d be right now without her, because talking about feelings is hard when you’re given the open end of a question to lie about them in. So sure, maybe she does it because she’s still not sure how _not_ to be straight-forward and blunt sometimes, and yeah, she’s definitely just as emotionally screwed up as he is, but.

 _But_.

“Um,” says Peter. “Sure, yeah.”

Gamora is silent for a moment.

“Can I ask why?”

So there _is_ a question, there. But this is Gamora, and Peter takes a second to marvel at how easy the words slip out before letting the words slip out.

“My mom used to have that exact brand in the bathroom cabinet at home,” he says, trying not to think about how his voice immediately tightens. “It’s, uh. It’s nail polish.”

“Nail polish,” says Gamora slowly, like she’s trying out the word in her mouth. Maybe she sort of is, Peter realizes.

“Yeah, it’s – probably not _just_ a Terran thing, but you, you put it. On your nails. ‘Cause it’s pretty, I guess? I dunno, my mom really liked it. And she had like, three favorite bottles, and they were all that brand.” He laughs a bit, his shaking chest making her palms press harder against his back and legs. “I have jack-all clue how the hell that stuff got here, but it was just – a throwback, I guess.”

“I see,” says Gamora.

“I’ve never seen Terran nail polish in space, I guess,” Peter says, staring at the ceiling.

There’s a moment.

“It brought you pleasant memories,” she says.

Another statement.

“Yeah,” says Peter, realizing that he’s being honest again as her arms start pushing upwards once more. “Yeah, it did.”

**

“I have to go out for an important errand that is unrelated to anything we’ve talked about lately,” she says later, after she’s showered and he’s started helping Drax make dinner (he knows how to do more than _just_ re-hydrated Elthorian noodles, okay, _jeez_ ). Her hair is still a bit wet, curling softly where it's drying around her shoulders, and she’s wearing her vest and jacket over her loose tank-top like she’s getting ready to go do battle against some formidable foe.

Peter smiles at her all big and goofy, because he’s a dumbass like that he guesses, and tells her to take the Godslayer with her and not do anything he wouldn’t do.

It says a lot about their collective existence and/or the dives they’ve stopped at recently that he’s mostly unconcerned about Gamora going off on her own on a mysterious errand in the shithole streets of Knowhere.

Keyword being _mostly_.

“She’ll be alright, right?” Peter asks Drax, looking over his shoulder to where Gamora has disappeared up the kitchen ladder to the main exit hatch.

“If she is not back by dinnertime, we shall tear apart the streets with our bare hands to find her,” Drax assures him sincerely. “But she will be fine. She is a mighty warrior, and not pathetic like you.”

“Hey!” says Peter.

“You are burning the water,” Drax says. “Gamora would never do that.”

This is true, Peter concedes; Gamora would accidentally set the stove on fire. She and cooking get along only marginally better than Rocket and cooking, and there’s an Official Ban regarding Rocket and all kitchen implements written in Peter’s hopefully-decipherable handwriting that’s scotch-taped to the cooler.

Peter yelps and flaps his hands at the smoking water – he didn’t know water could _do_ that – and lets Drax take over and relegate him to chopping the remainder of their weird onion-ish fruits, of which they seem to have an inexhaustible supply. Peter stopped questioning those a long time ago.

Gamora shows up long before dinner, safe and sound and not needing any street-tearing to happen on her behalf, and it’s safe to say that by the time she’s dropped gracefully into her seat at the scratched and stained metal table in the middle of the kitchenette, Peter’s almost forgotten that she was being vaguely more mysterious than normal; Rocket has moved his latest explosive experiment to the kitchen table (despite the _clearly written and posted ban_ , right underneath the one about using the stove!), Groot keeps trying to eat one of Peter’s socks, and Mantis has discovered the camera tool on the family portable tablet, which she is using to obsessively take pictures of everything from the weird stain shaped like Nova Prime’s hairdo on the couch to Peter’s ear.

“Mantis, my ear is _not_ that interesting – Groot, _stop_ , spit that out – _out_ , out of your mouth, that was on my _foot_ –! _Rocket!”_

“What?” asks Rocket, holding aloft what looks suspiciously like a turbo laser.

“It ain’t a turbo laser,” says Rocket. “It’s modified a bunch, so it’s –”

“OUT OF THE KITCHEN, MAN!”

Across from him, Gamora grabs Mantis’s wrist before she can take another picture, surprisingly gentle as her lithe fingers close around Mantis’s glove-clad skin.

“No more pictures,” says Gamora, raising her eyebrows meaningfully. “Please.”

“Oh,” says Mantis, antennae drooping a bit. “No more pictures at all?”

“Some other time!” says Peter hastily. “Just – not my ear, okay?”

Her face lights up like Rocket’s turbo laser probably would have.

“Okay!”

Peter lets out an exhale, shoulders sagging a bit, and finally offers Gamora a lopsided grin.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” she says, sounding amused, but her face is soft, which makes Peter’s heart do dumb things in his chest.

So it’s understandable, really, that it’s not until later when he’s getting ready for bed, utterly bone-tired despite not once having left the ship the whole day, leaving the Milano’s single communal bathroom (which he _really_ needs to do something about) and drying his face with a dingy towel that should probably be put through the ship’s cleaning cycle – it’s not until everything’s winded down a bit that he remembers he’d been meaning to ask Gamora what it was she went out to do. He’d not thought to ask earlier, because if she didn’t want to broadcast it that was her call, and he knew she’d probably tell him at some point, anyway. But he’s curious, and the “lying in bed pretending that we’re not holding hands except we really are and life is good” portion of their evening is usually the best time for heart-to-hearts.

Not that going on errands is a heart-to-heart chat topic, but Peter’s trying his best here, okay?

He’s made it halfway into his – their, really – quarters when his eyes register the neat little rainbow of tarnished bottles sitting lined up in a cracked case on his box of Miscellaneous Shit in the corner. The tops of the wands are a little chipped and on one of them, the brand label that he knew so immediately is peeling, but –

 _But_.

Peter stares at them, for like, a whole sixty seconds.

And then for another forty-eight seconds after that.

It’s a lot to take in, okay?

Also, he maybe needs to blink away the sharp and sudden blur of tears in his eyes, which is _totally_ not a thing, nope, before he flops into bed beside Gamora, who is curled up on her side and facing the wall in her classic I’m Pretending To Be Asleep Pose.

“Hey,” Peter whispers, with a voice that is definitely not a little chokey.

He can see her shoulders move when she breathes in.

“Hey,” says Peter again. “I know you’re totally awake.”

“Ugh,” says Gamora. “You mean you let me fake it?”

“Usually, yeah,” says Peter. “But not this time, because you –”

His voice catches, stupidly, and he has to clear his throat once or five times before taking a deep breath and swallowing. During which, of course, Gamora has rolled over and is looking at him with wide eyes and pursed lips, and –

“Peter? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” croaks Peter.

“I thought that you might –”

“I just really love you right now,” says Peter. Gamora stares at him, for a long moment, before her face suddenly and beautifully softens again; the same gentle settling of hard angles that made his smile go goofy in the kitchen earlier, a look that he can’t help but feel sometimes is something only he gets to see. It’s – a humbling thought.

“Because you’re awesome,” he clarifies. “And amazing, and you – you know. I mean, I always love you, that’s like a consistent thing – I’ve definitely said this before, right. Right? I’ve made this sentiment clear –”

“Peter,” she says. This is also gentle, if a little hesitant, like she really doesn’t want to make a big deal of this, and, okay, so he needs to respect that, even if he is pretty much on the brink of crying. Which is fine, whatever. That’s fine, _he’s_ fine. Thank God Drax isn’t here to see this. He considers hugging her, which might take some maneuvering considering they’re both half-lying down, and then considers kissing her, which feels weirdly Not Enough in a moment like this.

He grabs her hand, and lays down on his back, and turns his face to look at her.

“Anyway,” he says, “thanks.”

“I’m glad you like them,” she says quietly, back. Her hair is in two braids, almost like pigtails if deadly assassins wore their hair in pigtails, and her eyebrows are creased in an adorably deliberate sort of way, and the silver of her cheeks and forehead is glinting like starlight in the shitty cabin lighting.

Peter squeezes her hand, as tightly as he can, and then curls around against her, burying his face in the crook of her neck. They fall asleep like that, breathing even and steady, and the nightmares aren’t assholes that night, so that’s a plus. But then, the nightmares haven’t been assholes for a while, now, thinks Peter the next morning – probably because of things like the little row of rainbow bottles sitting there in the corner, making his heart feel big and warm in his chest.

**

It begins.

That makes it sound _really_ dramatic. Like, super extra, but Peter’s come to embrace that kind of shit. He calls himself Star-Lord, honestly, so in order to cling to his remaining scraps of dignity, being self-aware is kind of a necessity of life.

He grabs the nail polish set the next day, after they’re successfully out of Knowhere’s atmosphere and charting their course to the next Job, and settles at the kitchen table, tossing the Zune down beside his elbow and turning the volume to low. He picks yellow first, because yellow was his mom’s favorite colour, and tells Rocket that it’s because yellow has a bright kinda happy vibe.

Rocket, who is sitting at the kitchen table beside him, breaking all explicit scotch-taped bans _again_ , rolls his eyes.

“That’s stupid.”

“ _You’re_ stupid,” says Peter breezily, starting on his left thumb, and is surprised to find out that he’s weirdly, totally unphased by Rocket – being Rocket.

Rocket makes a face at him and returns to his newest contraption – somehow already a different one from last night’s not-turbo laser – deliberately being louder than usual. It’s been a little short of a year since – since Ego _happened_ , and once again Peter deals with his issues like a mature and grown up adult, thanks – and even though Peter complains every day about the flagrant ignoring of his carefully written-out scotch tape bans, he’s kinda happy Rocket’s stopped holing himself up in his quarters to work, and is coming out and terrorizing the masses on the regular now, like things are back to normal. Peter himself copes – coped – _whatever_ , it’s all one big muddle, anyway – but he’s gotta deal with stuff surrounded by people, otherwise he’ll lose his shit. He figured that out real early on, and a part of him wonders exactly how he’d intended to live if he’d broken off from the Ravagers and become a lone ranger like he’d been planning to do, what feels like ages ago now.

Anyway. He's glad Rocket's out here being obnoxious, is what he's getting at, he supposes.

Peter moves onto his index finger and sings off-tune to Parliament’s _Flashlight_.

It takes all of fifty seconds before Rocket has put down his tools and is pulling himself up to stand higher at the table, craning his whole body over to have a good look at what Peter is doing.

“What is it,” he asks, eyes narrowed at where Peter’s trying to make sure the brush doesn’t go over his cuticles, his tongue sticking out a bit with concentration.

“Nail polish, man,” says Peter, and then sticks his tongue out harder, dotting at his pinky.

“Nail polish,” deadpans Rocket.

“Yep. It’s a Terran thing. People do it all the time there.”

(He doesn’t actually _know_ if this is true; all he’s basing this off of is his mom. But he’s not gonna tell Rocket that.)

“Seriously? Looks shady, Quill.”

“You put it on your fingers ‘cause it looks pretty, dumbass.”

“That’s stupid. It looks painful. You’re all weirdos.”

And he turns back to his project, scowling.

Barely three minutes later, Rocket’s leaning way over into Peter’s personal space again, inspecting his brightly-coloured nails.

“Do me,” says Rocket, poking him in the shoulder.

“What?”

“Do me,” he repeats, poking him again. His claws are sharp, so Peter doesn’t spend time questioning exactly what his life is, but holds up the cracked case with all the colours in it.

“You gotta pick one,” says Peter. Rocket tilts his head.

“Blue,” he says. “Duh.”

So: it begins.

**

Drax asks him next, which is somehow not the weirdest thing that has ever happened in Peter’s life. The big dude corners him coming out of the bathroom still half asleep, giant hands clamping on Peter’s biceps and rattling him a little bit with the sheer excitement that Drax seems to be containing within himself at the prospect of putting colourful paint on his very short and stubby nails.

They sit down in the kitchen again, because that seems to be The Place To Do It, Peter guesses – his mom’s Place was the front porch – and when Peter finishes, Drax is positively beaming.

“I look as though I have just slaughtered a mighty foe with my bare hands!” he crows to the room at large – they’re the only two people in it – and waves around his newly-painted bright red nails in front of his face. “Thank you, friend Peter, for sharing this sacred Terran ritual with me!”

“No problem, man,” says Peter, who’s grinning hugely himself, mostly because – well. Because.

Drax’s grin may be a little manic most of the time, but damn if it isn’t infectious.

“I am honoured,” Drax says, face softening, and if Peter didn’t know any better, he’d say there was something almost tender about the look he gets. “Tomorrow I will share a custom of my own with you.”

“Really?” says Peter, pleasantly surprised. “Cool, dude, I’d like that.”

“Indeed – I shall demonstrate the vigorous wrestling match we partake in when courting a prospective beloved. Undoubtedly, this will help you in your thus far unsuccessful quest with Gamora.”

He leaves Peter spluttering at the table, still sporting that ridiculously wide grin as he and his red nails make their way to the storage room to grab stuff for today’s Meal of The Day.

**

Groot tries to bite his finger off later that afternoon, because apparently anything that’s brightly coloured equals edible bug.

“That’s fine, buddy,” says Peter, through tears of pain, after he’s explained to his tiny tree son why his fingers are brightly-coloured, and how no, they’re not for eating, and nah, it doesn’t hurt Groot, I’m not mad at you at all even though I think I heard the bone crack. “Just not again, okay?”

“I am Groot!”

“I don’t know if it’s safe for your bark, though,” says Peter, resisting the urge to stick his throbbing finger in his mouth and suck on it.

“I am _Groot!_ ”

“No! Please don’t bite me again, _okay_ , we’ll find you a tree-safe paint, okay? Next stop – next time we stop – I can see you laughing behind that door, Gamora! I’m tryin’a be a responsible parent, here!”

**

Mantis yells “PURPLE!” far louder than necessary when Peter presents her with the colour options, clapping her hands together with almost as much enthusiasm as Drax had. Her weird bug eyes are wide and awe-struck as Peter unscrews the polish bottle and starts on her surprisingly slender and manicured nails, and she keeps asking questions every few seconds: about what the paint is made of (Peter has zero idea, and his anxiety levels briefly spike at the thought that he might accidentally be poisoning Mantis via her cuticles), about how steady your hand needs to be to not get any paint anywhere (Peter starts humming loudly and tells her that the smeared paint is part of the Look), and about whether or not she can show her nails off to Drax afterwards.

“Sure you can,” says Peter, a little bit bemused. Mantis grins – she’s gotten a lot better at doing that, lately – her cheeks dimpling.

“That is great! Now we can pretend we have both beaten a big foe with our hands.”

Peter figures there’s probably some alien species somewhere in the galaxy with floridly purple blood and simply smiles indulgently and nods, dipping the wand back into the bottle and starting on her ring finger.

“You are not worried about touching my hands,” says Mantis presently, her voice noticeably quieter than it was before. Peter pauses over her pinky, eyebrows creasing at the sudden wave of anxiety that shoots through his fingers – God, did she feel that from him, too? – and looks up at her. She looks – not _confused_ , exactly, but a bit nervous. He doesn’t exactly need to be that great at reading faces to know that, though.

“Uh,” says Peter, blinking. He hadn’t really thought about that; she’d been so excited to try it, he just … “Yeah, I guess not. Should I be?”

“I do not think so,” says Mantis, looking down at where he’s cupping her fingers in his hand. The purple paint at the end of the brush has dripped down in a misshapen blob, and is now dotting Mantis’s knuckle and Peter’s palm. “I have gotten better at controlling it.”

He blinks again – it makes sense, he realizes, because he hasn’t felt much of anything outside of his own contentment until he got that nervous wavelength from her. But that’s the thing, he thinks. He’d chalked up the contentment to Mantis Vibes, when really it was just … him.

The nail polish.

Something.

“Well whaddaya know,” says Peter, his mouth stretching into a lopsided grin. “You have. Mantis, that’s great!”

She smiles again – it’s big, and a little weird if he’s being honest, but she looks so genuinely pleased that he can’t help but let his own grin widen. And then she closes her big bug eyes, and he feels a gentle pressure on his palm as her fingertips press down.

“You feel very warm, Peter,” she tells him, her eyes popping back open, antennae glowing purple almost like her nails.

“Uh,” says Peter. “Yeah, I’m – I have good circulation. I think. Terrans can be like –”

“No,” says Mantis. “You _feel_ warm. Your feelings, they are warm.”

“Oh,” says Peter.

“Yes,” says Mantis. “Thank you for making my hands pretty like my face is not.”

She smiles again, and leaves to go show off to Drax, smeared blobs of paint left un-cleaned from her hands.

Peter is still smiling, he realizes, ten whole minutes after she’s left.

**

Kraglin shows up halfway through the month, toting a cargo of mismatched boxes full of freaky-expensive-looking jewelry and a bunch of cracked photo disks.

“I found ‘em,” he says, holding them out to Peter. “They’re oldies, they are. Stuck in the back of his quarters, in that ole box he’d call Mis’llaneous Shit, you remember?”

“I remember,” says Peter, who has his own box, for reasons totally not related to Yondu’s box. He takes the disks from Kraglin and feels his fingers tighten around the edges, ‘cause they’re – _God_ , they’re not even that great, picture-wise. Most of ‘em are blurry. One of them is of Peter, probably around nineish, obviously in the middle of terrifiedly crying his eyes out in the middle of the Quadrant’s hallway. There’s definitely a couple assorted pictures of people _ears_ , of _all_ things.

There’s one, though – of Peter again, holding onto what he suddenly remembers as his first gun, missing two teeth but looking genuinely happy. He can see Yondu’s hand blurring blue in the corner of the photo, the man himself clearly gesturing something off-screen.

Telling him not to shoot himself in the foot, probably.

Peter swallows back the sudden lump in his throat, and looks back up at Kraglin. The only other personal photo he has is the one bent-up one of his mom and him, that’s so faded and frayed he has to keep it in a plastic baggie nestled safely at the bottom of the box of Miscellaneous Shit.

“Hey,” says Kraglin, breaking the silence. “Yer fingers’re yellow.”

“What? Oh,” says Peter, looking down and blinking. “Yeah, uh – we found a set, it’s a Terran – thing.” He pauses, and bites his lip. The photo disks are cool in his hands. “You wanna put some on?”

Kraglin picks orange, and they somehow miraculously don’t end up drunk by the end of it. Peter wonders if this is what it means to heal.

**

“Hey, Gamora?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for getting these for me.”

He’s watching her from under his lashes – the only way he can see her expression without awkwardly craning his neck up, seeing as how he’s sprawled on his stomach on the bed in front of her, feet dangling off the edge, braced on his elbows. His hands are starting to get pins-and-needles, but he ignores that, and finishes her pinky finger with a flourish.

Her mouth has pressed down on itself, and she’s looking at a spot on the bed.

“You found me that old Zen-Whoberi lullaby last year,” she points out, still looking at the bed. “I owed you one.”

Peter clears his throat against the sudden warmth in his cheeks and moves on to her toes, shuffling awkwardly down the bed until his toes are drooping down and skimming the floor.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like you owed me one.”

“The paints were important to you,” says Gamora. “It was a straightforward decision.”

“Well, so was finding you that song.”

“You somehow found a decades-old encrypted file from a planet that doesn’t _exist_ anymore –”

“First of all,” says Peter, “it wasn’t even that much work, okay, I just hit up a couple favors from Dey at the Nova Corps, ‘cause he loves us now, or whatever. Second, I did that because you told me that story about how your mom used to sing to you as a kid, and I _had_ all _my_ mom’s songs, and it just didn’t seem fair that you couldn’t –”

“Yes, but –”

“Giving gifts is something you do when you care about someone, alright?” says Peter, a little more loudly than he intended.

(He’s not sure if it’s because he’s worried that she doesn’t know he cares, or maybe isn’t going to tell him more stories, or – he tells _her_ stories, and she’d finally told him one, and something about that was indescribably important and needed to be protected and maybe that’s why Peter’s being so blustery about this. Maybe. Also, his own dumb insecurities.)

They blink at each other. Gamora’s taken off her vest and boots, and Peter’s in a ratty old t-shirt, and he’s definitely forgotten to fix his hair since that morning when he woke up with half of it sticking up to the side. If someone were to walk in on them right now, they’d probably look a little bit ridiculous, especially with the added bonus of Intense Emotional Screwage. They’re arguing about –

Peter has absolutely no idea what they’re arguing about.

Gamora drops her eyes, and then narrows them after a moment.

“You’re dripping paint on the bed.”

“Crap,” says Peter.

“I’m sorry I’m terrible at giving and receiving gifts.”

“You’re not that bad,” says Peter. “At least, not at picking ‘em out. Maybe in like actually presenting them to people normally. And taking gifts from folks. And –”

“I’m trying,” says Gamora, abruptly. “To understand what it means to be cared for.”

“Oh,” says Peter, in a way that he hopes can get across the implied “I knew that already, babe, don’t worry about it”.

“Yeah,” says Gamora.

“You know I do though, right?”

She nods, vigorously, her palms flat against the bed. He can see her fingers splayed tense over the bedding, like she’s trying really hard not to fist them so the fresh paint doesn’t get ruined.

“Yes. _Yes_. And me too, for you, you do –”

(His heart clenches; God, childhood baggage is a bitch.)

“I know,” he says, honestly.

(He does. He really, really does.)

“It’s just, sometimes I – there are sometimes.”

“Hey, man,” he says. “I get those too. Remember that time I tried to make you leave me in the man-eating flower thing?”

Gamora frowns sharply.

“That was _very_ stupid. If you ever do that again, I’ll tie you up and throw you in the bathroom after Drax has used it.”

He makes an offended noise, but she’s still frowning, so Peter tugs at her pinky toe and does stick his tongue out, now, with concentration.

(He hears the little half-laugh escape her mouth above him and mentally fist-pumps.)

Gamora’s chosen green, because of course she has, and they’re doing each other’s nails sprawled out across the cramped bunk on an afternoon parked planetside where Rocket’s dragged Mantis and Drax with him to look for a piece of wood shaped specifically like a weiner – Peter’s words – leaving the Milano blissfully quiet and chill. Groot’s holed up in his room because he’s a moody teenager now, Peter guesses ( _still_ not the weirdest thing in Peter’s life), and so he and Gamora have at least a solid three hours to chat and listen to music and maybe even make out without obnoxious interruption.

Groot’s no longer pattering around the ship and bursting through doors without knocking, which means that the making out is _definitely_ on the table.

“It really is very pretty,” she says, watching the brush swipe over her middle toe. Her nails are the easiest to do, Peter thinks, because they’re long and flat and not weirdly-shaped. He’s not even being biased; his own nails are almost as stubby as Drax’s, Rocket’s got _claws_ , and Mantis’s fingers are so dainty that most of the paint goes on her skin, and not the nail. Kraglin’s nails are just plain nasty.

“You can use ‘em whenever you want,” he says, without really thinking about it. He feels her fingers suddenly stiffen against his, and he looks up, raising an eyebrow.

“Are,” starts Gamora. “Are you sure?”

Peter blinks. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”

He can see her take a moment, like she does sometimes when she’s trying to think of the right thing to say, to phrase it properly, to make sure that he knows exactly what she’s thinking.

“They’re important to you,” she says, finally.

“Yeah, but I trust you,” says Peter, once again without even stopping to think, which – huh. Huh.

It’s not a novel thought – _definitely_ not a novel thought – but he’s maybe never just – said it. Which is dumb, especially considering – just. He should say it way more often.

“Thank you,” says Gamora, more quietly this time.

Peter wants to say something big like “I would trust you with my life” or “I can’t believe you could ever doubt that, here are ten reasons why I you’re like a really important person to me”, or even maybe “I don’t know what I’d do without you, like at all”. Maybe that last one’s a little co-dependent, but Peter’s pretty sure that’s just a fact of their life at this point, and they sort of … deal with it. Live with it, actually, would be the more accurate phrasing. But all that stuff is sticky and emotional and so instead he just hums and presses his cheek against the inside of her knee, dotting the end of her nail to make sure it’s all evenly spread.

“You’re surprisingly good at this,” Gamora adds, into the soft silence. The Zune is sitting on the edge of the bed, the muffled sounds of the Jackson Five filtering up into the bedroom space.

“I’m good at lots of things,” he protests, mostly just for show, trying not to stick his tongue out in concentration again. He’d done it a couple times with his mom, he doesn’t say. She’d sit him down with her on the foot of the porch, a tray of his grandma’s sweet tea beside them, and let him pick the colour every time, show him how to hold the brush so that he didn’t get paint all over his fingers. Peter’d thought the colours were the prettiest things in the world, except for maybe his mom herself.

Maybe she gets that anyway, though, because she hums, “Mmmhmmm,” in assent, an ironic curl to the edge of her mouth. God, she’s so beautiful.

“Pay attention to your work, Starlord,” she says, when he tells her this.

Peter grins, and goes back to her Ideally-Shaped Nails. Her hands are warm in his too, and Peter thinks about how for the first time in a long time, memories of things aren’t making his chest go all cold.

 _You feel warm,_ Mantis had said.

Emotionally screwed up, sure, but they’re gonna have some bomb-ass complementing nails when this is done. Also, he loves her, which has to count for something.

“It does,” says Gamora, in that uniquely earnest, blunt way of hers, her big brown eyes bright as can be. “It _does_.”

**

(He wonders, sometimes, if Yondu would’ve laughed at the nail painting. There’s a weird part of him that wants to say _no, he wouldn’t_ , even though every possible memory he has says Signs Point To Yes, but.

 _But_.

It’s getting easier, in general. And honestly, maybe Yondu’d see this is a surefire way to have gotten ten-year-old Peter to stop chewing on his nails – _space shit all over ‘em,_ he’d say, swatting at Peter’s hands. _Yer gonna get yourself sick, boy, and I’d have to deal with that._ It’d have been better strategy than threatening to eat him, anyway.

Peter misses him terribly.)

**

They don’t actually come to Knowhere that often, most of their jobs taking them to other sides of the galaxy, their orbit hovering more around Xandar and neighboring systems. Nova Corps technically doesn’t employ them, but somehow Peter’s gotten on Dey’s good side and the guy does them a solid and gives them tips for possible contracts: stealing back stolen artwork, protecting assortments of outposts from bandits and outlaws, and once, intercepting a slave ship.

Retrospectively, Peter wonders if maybe they weren’t the most emotionally reliable people for that job, but he also thinks that if word’s gotten ‘round, any asshole thinking of dipping their toes into that garbage sack of a business’ll think twice. Rocket still keeps one of the jerks' prosthetic as a souvenir, hanging at the end of his bunk like a spoil of war.

(Yondu would've been damn proud, Peter knows.)

Anyway, this isn’t for any job Dey’s given them, even though Peter does think absently that they should probably drop by and visit sometime soon; the guy deserves, like, a bouquet of flowers or something, and his kid has to lots of people’s dismay taken to referring to Peter as “Uncle Starlord”, which means that Peter feels bad if he doesn’t show up every few months with a big grin and a pocket full of unidentifiable trans-galactic candy that may or may not be safe for children’s consumption.

But they’re on Knowhere again, which Peter guesses is the place to go whenever you wanna to shady stuff, like meet up with your girlfriend’s cyborg sister who is currently trying to track down and murder their evil adoptive dad.

“You’re emotionally attached to my sister,” says Nebula, rounding on him abruptly as they reach the landing pad, in that usual overly-aggressive way of hers. Peter’s come to the conclusion that that’s just her natural voice.

“Uh,” says Peter, carefully. “Jeez, um – what am I supposed to say here to stay alive?”

“Ugh,” says Nebula. Her eye-roll is very succinct; if Peter wasn’t sort of scared shitless of her, he’d ask her to teach him. “I don’t care. She could snap your neck if she wanted to. But it’s a weakness.”

“Hey,” says Peter, frowning, because if there is one thing in the whole stupid universe he knows by now it’s that even though it _sounds_ really dumb and cheesy and you will probably end up getting played by evil douchebags at some point because of it, love is totally not a liability.

A pain in the ass, sometimes, and messy and complicated, and _damn_ can it hurt like hell – but not a weakness.

“Love’s not a weakness,” Peter tells her, wondering if this, finally, is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to him. “It makes you strong, and stuff.”

Nebula looks unimpressed.

“When we had to blow up my dad it kinda worked like a superpower,” adds Peter, because that’s true. Except now that he says it out loud it also sounds dumb, which is not a thing to sound in front of Nebula. Nebula doesn’t tolerate “dumb” a lot, which is probably why she only lets herself interact with them for a few hours every seventh month, looking like she’s suffering a slow and painful death every time.

Nebula narrows her eyes, which she is also very good at doing, and then crosses her arms.

Peter smiles at her nervously, kind of like, _hey, don’t punch me in the face because I said love was neat._

And then –

“What’s on your fingers.”

“What?”

“Your fingers,” she barks, still _so_ aggressive. Peter has really got to wonder if they did something funky to her vocal chords to make her sound more scary.

“Oh – shit, right, uh, nail polish. Paint. On your nails!” He wiggles his fingers weakly.

“Paint,” says Nebula.

“It’s pretty and stuff. Wanna try some?”

“No,” she says, and turns her back to him and stalks the rest of the way to the ship. Peter tries not to take it too personally.

Two hours later, they’re ready for departure and Gamora is supposed to have been successfully briefed, brought up to speed, had a solid dish-session with her sister – however they communicated the information, honestly – on Thanos’s whereabouts in case Nebula needs to call them in for backup. This is something she’d admitted, _very_ begrudgingly, at their last reluctant rendezvous, when she grumbled something about how whatever Thanos was up to was slowly becoming a lot bigger than a simple matter of killing him. Which she _could_ do, Nebula insisted. But things had changed.

Peter looks around at the sound of the hatch to the cockpit opening, swivelling in his seat. Nebula’s come in behind Gamora (who is looking far more at ease than Peter’s ever seen her post-sisterly-meet-ups) and is shifting stiffly from foot to foot.

The nails on her right hand are flourescent pink.

You told me I could use them whenever, Gamora mouths at him, as Nebula stomps forward another couple steps.

“I’m leaving,” she declares, like almost to the room at large. Nebula does that a lot, Peter’s noticed, as though she wants to make sure at least one person has heard her, properly. Or maybe it’s just because she doesn’t consider them valuable enough as sentient people to actually speak to them normally. Peter’s not sure, and he makes a big effort to look her in the eye, because he has a feeling that grinning at her bright pink nails won’t do him any favors in the “not maimed yet” department. “Don’t expect to see me around. I’ll call you if I don’t die.”

“Sounds real fun,” says Peter, who knows that she probably won’t die. Most likely. Gamora seems unconcerned, and Peter trusts her judgement of what situations are You Can Die Here situations, so he doesn’t say anything else.

Nebula makes an indecipherable noise.

“Kick his ass if he does anything dumb,” she says to Gamora, before stalking out of the room. Gamora makes her way to the co-pilot’s seat, which should be manned by Rocket but isn’t because a pipe blew in the engine room and he’s trying to make sure the ship doesn’t implode before take-off.

“You are totally allowed to kick my ass if I do anything dumb,” Peter tells her honestly.

“I know,” she says. “She loves it, by the way.”

“The fact that you can kick my ass?”

“The nail polish, Peter.”

“Oh. Oh, sure.”

Gamora smiles, finally, her whole face lighting up.

“We _bonded_.”

Peter doesn’t laugh, because if he did, he would have a sore arm the next morning from where she’d punched him good-naturedly.

(He laughs, and his arm is _so_ sore the next morning. Gamora doesn’t stop smiling.)

**

So it’s a thing. Like a constant sort of thing, one that floats around with them underneath everything they do. With the passage of time, the sharp, painful, nightmare-bringing, emotional-screwage-inducing edge of the Real Bad Shit that went down starts wearing into something softer, less brittle. It’s easier to think about his mom, and Yondu, and the fact that they’re still sometimes really bad at communicating like adults. Arguments are softer, _they’re_ softer. Like, maybe not in the sense that Drax still thinks murder is an acceptable reaction to minor inconveniences and Rocket has a growing collection of bombs on the kitchen table and Mantis’s smiles still somehow look like someone’s pulling her teeth, and how Gamora still might accidentally kill you in a stranglehold if you wake her up too abruptly. But – but _under_ all that stuff –

It’s weird, Peter thinks, ‘cause a part of him didn’t even notice the change at all. Time passes, and it just _happens_ – things change and change and change (for the better, Peter thinks, and not just in an “evil people are becoming more powerful unexpectedly” kind of way), and the little nail polish kit is busted out for all occasions.

Groot finally cleans his room, and Peter takes out the turquoise food die that is safe to use on plants. His bark is somehow smooth and rough at the same time, and Peter finds himself pulled into a surprisingly gentle hug before he can close the lid of the paint bottle properly, which means his favorite pair of pants are now eternally stained blue.

Gamora teaches Mantis how to use a knife, for self defense purposes _only_ , Drax, and definitely not because killing people is a good thing. Peter comes down to the cargo bay to see the two of them laughing together, Mantis clutching at her stomach and Gamora showing a bright strip of teeth, because the paint on Gamora’s nail chipped and the empty space where the paint was gone looked like Rocket’s face when he’s “particularly grumpy”; Peter hopes with his whole heart that Mantis does not relay this tale to Rocket _quite_ like that.

Peter learns that Drax is really good at not just waving knives around and cooking a mean Unidentifiable Stew, but also at doing funky designs with the polish. Peter has an allergic reaction to some weird soup thing planetside and he’s stuck in bed shivering all day, and Drax sits down and ignores all feeble arguments, paints swirls, first, and then smiley-faces, and finally lots of flowers, which Peter isn’t sure is because Groot’s growing them in abundance lately or just – _because_.

“My daughter loved flowers,” Drax tells him honestly, kind of a total non-sequitur, but Peter’s chest goes all warm again and even if his tongue is kind of swollen and his grin probably looks more like a grimace, he smiles at the venus flytrap-looking thing on his thumb.

Rocket helps him build another bathroom, which is probably the greatest achievement of all, and their nails are chipped by the end (tragically not looking like anyone’s faces) but they sing along to the Zune through the whole project and only threaten to strangle and/or blow up each other once.

He and Gamora get married.

It’s like, why not, they’re practically married for all intents and purposes _anyway_ ; they’ve been sleeping in the same bed since the “we had to blow up my dad who was also an evil megalomaniac sentient planet and now there’s some emotional scarring left over” fiasco; they saved the galaxy twice; they raised a _talking tree_ ; and if the legality of it is probably only valid on one or two planets and Groot is the officiator, who _cares_.

(Rocket cries; Kraglin cries too; Nebula shows up and Peter wonders if she has some sort of weird sixth sense for these things right before she punches him lightly in the arm, which Peter thinks is probably the most affectionate he’s ever seen her. Afterwards, he and Gamora sit on the top of the Milano’s wing and share something that he thinks _might_ be ice cream, while the rest of the gang gets totally drunk inside. Gamora’s wearing a soft black skirt that he’s noticed she puts on whenever she feels comfortable and relaxed – it’s the one they gave her on Xandar, he realizes, right after they defeated Ronan and locked away the Infinity Stone. He’s shrugged off his jacket and they hold hands and let the Zune play songs on shuffle, and take turns tasting each other’s ice cream. Their nails are painted like rainbows, like the big clouds of stardust they can see on the horizon, and Peter, who has miraculously not cried, thinks that it’s pretty much the best evening of his whole life.)

Of course, this is right about when things do change in an “evil people are becoming more powerful unexpectedly” kind of way.

Which, you know, figures.

**

“If Thanos truly _has_ collected the stones –”

“We don’t know that for sure, though.”

“Drax, you d’ast idiot, you’re sittin’ on my tail!”

“Your tail is on my chair, rodent.”

“Alright, _buddy_ –”

“I am Groot.”

“No, this isn’t a bomb, it’s a lock pick, jeez, Groot, you’d think _you_ of all people’d be familiar –”

“ _If_ ,” Gamora says, her voice cutting through the blabber, “Thanos has truly collected all of the stones, we have _no choice_ but to offer our help to these people.”

They’re sitting in the Milano’s mess again, which Peter guesses isn’t just the Place for nail painting but the Place in general – what is this, a council of war? A pow-wow? A circle of jackasses, who are currently sitting down? Hell if he knows – but anyway, they’re sitting at the scratched metal table in the kitchen, Gamora at the head seat, her hands in fists in front of her. Peter is beside her, trying not to let his legs bounce too much under the table with pent-up nervous energy; across from him, Rocket is twisting two wires in place on a suspicious-looking contraption that looks a lot more explosive-y than lock pick-y, and beside _him,_ Groot is looking concernedly at the ship’s single board game, which is, for some _Godforsaken reason,_ laid out nice and ready to play in the middle of them all.

Mantis reaches over and pushes forward the little dog across _income tax_ – how the _shit_ did they end up with an old Terran copy of Monopoly, anyway, is Peter having a _stroke_ – and Drax makes an offended noise.

“The dog is mine.”

“I thought you were the funky iron last time,” says Rocket, not looking up from his explosive-y lock pick.

“ _Guys_ ,” says Gamora, almost in a snarl; Peter kicks Drax under the table so that no one gets maimed before they can die trying to save the world again.

“What if,” says Rocket, “I don’t trust these – and I use this term loosely here – people.”

(Peter refrains from mentioning that Rocket is a talking raccoon, and as such probably far lower than any of them on the Terran scale of “what constitutes a person”, because he is just a considerate friend like that.)

“Doesn’t matter,” bites out Gamora. “This isn’t a question of _if_. We _must_ stop Thanos.”

So, okay, here’s what’s going down, as far as Peter’s got it figured: Nova Corps called them two days ago wailing about imminent galaxy-destruction and infinity stones, and, conveniently, Thanos. Gamora had gone white as a sheet, metaphorically, because she definitely still looked green, and Peter is not proud to say that his first immediate thought was, “Well, fuck.”

“Well, fuck,” Rocket had said.

More importantly, Nova Corps had gotten this intel from the motley collection of people who are currently congregated in the Corps briefing room and waiting for Peter’s questionably-sane family to come back and give them a verdict on their position in this whole deal, specifically vis-a-vis actually trusting a gang of random sort-of-Terran strangers with funky powers with the imminent destruction of the universe. Specifically, with the imminent destruction of the universe via Gamora’s evil and abusive adoptive ex-father.

Also conveniently, Nebula’s gone MIA, which is just – just –

“The dog is my piece,” Drax insists.

“But I think he is cute!” says Mantis, looking down sadly at the little tarnished playing piece. Peter realizes belatedly that it’s got an ear missing.

It’s just fan-frickin’-wonderful, is what it is.

“Look,” says Gamora, finally looking to him in desperation. “Those people in there, they don’t _know_ Thanos. We do. They _have_ to listen to us, and for that to happen, we have to make them trust us.”

 _I do_ , thinks Peter, that’s what she really wanted to say. _She_ knows Thanos. The thought makes something in his gut wanna do a backflip out onto the kitchen floor. It is categorically not a good or happy feeling.

Peter tries not to run a weary hand over his face and fails, and then, on instinct, reaches over and grabs Groot’s branch – hand – before he can put the funky iron into his mouth.

“Okay – first of all, no eating Monopoly playing pieces – why do we even _have_ – you know what, not important, listen.” He takes a deep breath. “Guys. Gamora’s right. It don’t matter if these guys look or smell shady to you, this whole thing is – it’s bigger than us. Probably bigger than all the jobs we’ve done in the past, okay? They’ve gotta trust us.”

The gang – his gang – looks at him, a sort of seriousness settling over everyone’s features. Drax stops looking at the little dog, and Mantis clasps her hands over each other under the table, and Groot lets the elongated shoots on his arms retract. Rocket, with a great and long-suffering sigh, puts his tools down on the table.

“Okay,” says Peter. “Okay, good start, you’re all listening. So – imminent world destruction. Anything else we need to know?”

“Yes,” says Gamora immediately. “Nova Prime said that that man – the god –”

Peter shudders, which is like, _fair_ , okay? That’s fair. He gets to have that.

“– Thor,” she says, frowning at the name. “He has said that if we agree to prove we can be trusted, he will get the Stark man to upload his datafiles to the Nova Corps database.”

“Right,” says Peter. “Which means – no cleaning knives in public, Drax. Mantis, keep your gloves on at all times please. Rocket, try to keep the explosives in a place that maybe is not anywhere at all, just don’t have any explosives. Groot –”

“I am Groot.”

“Yeah, buddy,” says Peter, “I guess you can give them flowers.”

“The key is to appear trustworthy and knowledgeable,” says Gamora, grabbing his hand over the table. Peter squeezes it back, thumb pressing over one of her nails; it’s smooth and glossy to the touch, and just that little thing seems to ground her, like there is a specific force injecting into her voice that means she will be _damned_ if she’s not listened to. Peter has to stop himself from grinning, because once again, he’s a dumbass like that he guesses. “We have to look like upstanding citizens, which we mostly kind of are, and not criminals.”

“We _used_ to be criminals,” Rocket points out.

“But we’re trustworthy,” insists Gamora. “We have to play the part. Which, currently, you all are not.”

“She’s right,” says Peter. “Y’ain’t.”

“Oh, God,” says Gamora.

**

(Rocket is the one with the idea to paint their nails to match before they go to meet these so-called Avengers.

“Team colours, right?” he asks, his grin not nearly as menacing as it usually is. “They’ll see we’re a group of ree-putable folks if we’re united, ain’t that how this works?”

Peter, personally, thinks that this is an excellent plan.

He keeps forgetting that he hasn’t been to Terra in a _hell_ of a long time.)

**

The world is saved, yet again.

It’s a good feeling, Peter would think, if his ribs didn’t hurt so damned much. Also, if they hadn’t sort of not-on-purpose rendezvoused back on Terra after the fact. Specifically to just – what? Sit in the rubble and groan?

That’s what Peter feels like a little bit, right now. He’s been avoiding this place for a _reason_.

He hears the crunch of gravel before he actually sees anything, probably because he’s refusing to open his eyes, but he knows that specific gait well enough – probably better than anyone else’s, to be honest – to hum quietly and reflexively lean over to put his head on Gamora’s shoulder when she drops down soundlessly onto the ground beside him.

“How are your ribs?”

“Fine.”

“Peter.”

“They’re only broke in two places, I’ve had way worse.” He should really open his eyes, but instead he presses his cheek against her shoulder a bit harder and makes a face at the dirt that rubs against his skin.

“And how are _you_?”

He does crack his eyes open, now, to see that she’s looking down at him with a very small crease between her eyebrows. Damn, he’s glad they’re not both dead.

“Been better,” he says. “Which you’re prob’ly feelin’ right now too, huh?”

“Yes,” says Gamora, her voice quiet. And then, with a bit more force: “ _Yes_. But I’ll be fine.”

“Jus’ like my ribs’ll be fine?”

He feels her own head drop, and the soft press of her cheek against his curls.

“Something like that, yes.”

“Mmm. Kinda wish we didn’t end up back here like _this_.”

“I know.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

They sit. Peter tries not to think about whether or not his grandparents are still alive and somewhere on this planet, or how they all just – died?

Yeah, uh. What the _fuck_ was that about.

“Stop thinking,” Gamora advises, when this line of thought is voiced aloud. “Just – sit. Tell me a story.”

“What?”

“So that I’m not thinking either.”

“Oh,” says Peter, clearing his throat. There’s a lot of dust around, and it sucks. He’s always hated dust. “Oh, uh, okay – okay, um. I ever told you ‘bout this movie my mom loved? It was set in space, you know? Like they had spaceships, and blast-y guns, and this giant talking bear thing.”

She shuffles against him.

“Bear … thing?”

“Oh, right, uh – big, tall like Groot. But with lots of fur.”

(Peter will admit, later, that he has never actually _seen_ a bear in his life. But they’ve gotta look something like wookiees, right?)

“I see,” says Gamora.

“So, anyway, Mom loved it. And there’s like a whole part where the space pirate and the princess fall in love, and the main hero’s dad turns out to be super evil. But he’s cool in the end I guess, ‘cause he sacrifices himself to save his kid against the _actual_ evil dude.”

If he had the energy to open his eyes again, he would see that Gamora is frowning slightly. As it is, he’d bet good money that he _knows_ she is.

“That sounds very complicated.”

“Mmm,” hums Peter. “It was _weird_. I only remember some stuff, though, ‘cause I was just a kid.”

“I see.”

“Yeah.”

“Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“Evil dads are the worst.”

He presses his cheek more closely against her neck and fumbles across the rubble-covered ground for her hand. Her nails feel rough and chipped, now, which is strange and disconcerting.

“I know, babe.”

“I’m sorry the Milano blew up.”

“‘S just a ship,” says Peter.

“The databanks –”

“Got backups,” he murmurs, because they’re supposed to be not thinking, and he cannot stress how much he wants to not think, right now. If his ribs didn’t hurt like hell, he’d probably already be asleep.

“Your nail polish is all gone,” says Gamora, her voice finally cracking.

In her defense, it’s been a long day, in a long week, in what has arguably been a long month out of a long life. And in Terran years, they’re only in their thirties! That’s stupid, Peter thinks – _real_ dumb. Maybe they’re not the most upstanding of citizens, but _everyone_ deserves a break now and again, right? One that lasts longer than half a year? So they can chill with their wife and crazy family members and not worry about the end of the world or sadistic parents or Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and not have a shitton of sad memories to add to the already very sad memories, over and over and over, rinse and repeat.

He’s glad his face is hidden by her hair, ‘cause it’d be real hard to hide the sudden hitch in his breath or the weird half-sob that escapes right after it otherwise. He swallows against the lump that’s lodged against his larynx a couple times and squeezes Gamora’s hand a bit tighter. She squeezes back. He’s pretty sure he’s only actually seen her cry once, and that’s not counting this time because his eyes are screwed way shut.

And then:

“Look! Look at what the Stark man and Widow lady have shown to me! Peter, Gamora, I have made a joyous discovery!”

Drax’s voice has two settings, Peter thinks. _Loud_ and _louder_.

And – magically – through the weird chokey noises and grossly wet grime on his cheeks, he starts smiling. The booted footsteps stomp to a stop in front of them, which is when Peter finally, finally opens his eyes.

Drax is standing there, looking as blissfully unharmed as always, holding aloft –

“Holy shit,” croaks Peter. “S that nail polish coloured like galaxies?”

“A new Terran invention!” says Drax excitedly. “We must wear it, as a team, yes?”

Peter looks up at him, mouth still half-hanging open, and then back behind him to where Stark and Romanov are trailing behind. Stark looks like he might have a stroke if he actually looks at any of them, his gaze pointedly focused on the sky, but Romanov’s got an amused curl to her lips, and something like fondness twinkling in her eyes, and Peter feels Gamora squeeze his hand again.

“Only if the Avengers do it too,” says Peter, his voice sounding vaguely more like itself, because it won’t have been a proper victory if he doesn’t get to be a piece of shit at least once.

“I do this out of the goodness of my heart, Starboy, and this is what I get?”

But Natasha is full-on grinning at him.

“I already asked Steve,” she says. “Do your worst, Quill.”

To the side, he can see Rocket rummaging through the debris, explaining his quest for useful stuff to steal to an interested Wanda, who is holding her arm funny. Beside him, Groot keeps holding up bits of rock for inspection, but Rocket seems to be unphased by this; on the other side of the clearing, Peter can hear Mantis’s over-loud laughter intermingling with Thor’s. Nebula’s somewhere on top of one of the buildings, having insisted earlier that she couldn’t deal with this many idiots all at once without _some_ kind of break, and Kraglin’s probably already getting drunk in some hole somewhere with Barton.

Peter thinks that his mom would’ve loved to meet all these people, and then thinks that Yondu would’ve scoffed at the sentiment.

(But.)

The air is still thick and the day was still long as hell and his ribs hurt, but his family’s all safe, and the world didn’t end, and he can feel Gamora smiling against his hair. Peter lets his grin grow into a full smile, and reaches up to take the bottle of sparkly nail polish from Drax’s hands.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) this technically takes place/starts roughly a year-ish after vol.2, which means that peter and gamora have fully embraced the "we are practically married in space" sentiment and are happy and in love. also, the original expected traumatic aftermath of that mess is a little less Viscerally Present. this is supposed to b a happy fic, after all
> 
> 2) i know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING abt the comics 'verse aside from what my little brother has told me in great detail, and according to him, everyone literally straight up DIES in infinity war. and then comes back to life, because the universe is re-set. dang. but anyways, if that one throwaway line confused the heck outta you, join the club, i too am confused. but i needed some vague semblance of plot, so, uh,,,
> 
> 3) so truth be told i keep flip-flopping between "i want peter and gamora to be like super chill and #married in infinity war bc they deserve that" and "i couldn't bare any Significant Relationship Jumps without good and righteous buildup dont FAIL me james gunn" so uh. let's just say that in fanfic they get hitched whenever they want bc truthfully i feel like as a Concept marriage isn't as complicated in space as it is on Earth, with a whole bunch of human tradition and problematic cultural norms there to screw with its purity. like -- they both, along with everyone else in the guardians, really very obviously has already established the concept of "together forever". marriage to them would just be a vaguely symbolic step.
> 
> 3) mmmm not really anything important to note about the fic but personally im so glad peter's an emotional loser in canon like i am like hell yeah i'm here for a main character whom cries easily that's some high quality content right,,,, like,,,, he's like "that's my song!!!" with tears in his eyes and im here going "FINALLY ..... a superhero to whom i can RELATE...."
> 
> 4) so um mylene cruz and the soul madonnas .... we're talking iconic 70s pop songs here, ARE WE NOT
> 
> 4b) yeah i know only mylene sings "I'm my number one" but the words sounded right on the page so shhh
> 
> 5) u guys. this is the most swear words ive ever written in like. my whole life. a MILESTONE in my fiction career,
> 
> 6) i hope u enjoyed and feedback would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!!


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